Photo by: Igor GOLUBENKOV

Researchers backed by the NSF (National Science Foundation) and in conjunction with the WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) have discovered a plume of hydrocarbons which is more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and is thought to be 22 miles long at minimum. This plume is the residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

The 650 foot high, and 1.2 mile wide, plume of trapped hydrocarbons was discovered in the midst of a ten day subsurface sampling effort which took place from the 19th of June, until the 28th of June this year near the wellhead. The results have given a clear indication of where the oil has gone as the slicks on the surface have been shrinking and disappearing.

“These results create a clearer picture of where the oil is in the Gulf,” commented Christopher Reddy, a WHOI marine geochemist and one of the authors of a paper on the results that appears in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

This investigation – which was made possible by three quick action grants from the chemical and oceanography program at the NSF, with additional money made available by the US Coast Guard and NOAA via the Resource Damage Assessment Program – has confirmed that a large flowing plume was discovered which had

“petroleum hydrocarbon levels that are noteworthy and detectable,” Reddy explained.

So it seems we have not yet seen the end of the dreadful BP Oil Spill. While there has been no talk about what to do about this potentially disastrous situation, they are hard at work on it, but it could be months before an answer is found.

BP

It has been over 3 weeks since BP has capped its spewing oil well. The skimming operations to help clean up the mess have all but ground to a halt, and researchers are saying that less than a third of the oil remains in the Gulf of Mexico.

That being the case, wildlife officials are finding more birds covered in the black sticky substance than ever. Fledgling birds are getting stuck in the viscous goo that is left behind after the cleanup efforts have passed on. Rescue workers are making initial visits to the rookeries they had initially avoided, lest they disturb the precious creatures during their nesting time.

What is really disturbing, is that before BP capped off their well on the 15th of July, an average of 37 birds were being pulled in dead or alive each day. Now, after the fact, that figure has doubled up to 71 per day. This information comes to us courtesy of a Times-Picayune review of the daily wildlife rescue reports.

The number of sea turtles discovered is even higher, with more of the poor things covered in the sticky black stuff being found in the last 10 days, than during the disaster’s first three months.

While the increase of oily turtles being found is still stumping researchers, the wildlife officials have said there are several things that could be contributing to the increase in the number of oiled birds being found since the leak was stopped.

Whatever the reasons, something has to be done about the situation, however, no efforts are being focused on that at this point in time.

Despite the May 26 directive issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard approved dozens of requests by BP to disperse hundred of thousands of gallons of surface oil dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico. The actual directive stated that they should only be using dispersants rarely, this according to documents analyzed by a Congressional subcommittee.

In fact, in some of the requests the Coast Guard approved, there wasn’t even an upper limit set on the amount of dispersant that BP planned to disperse.

The Democratic chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Edward J Markey, wrote in a letter to the retired Coast Guard admiral who is in charge of leading a federal response to the oil spill, Thad W. Alen, that the dispersants were contributing to “a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas, with impacts that are not well understood,”

In a conference call between the Admiral and the E.P.A. Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, they said they were working closely together on the issue, and were coming close to achieving the agency’s goal of diminishing the use of dispersant amounts by three quarters.

On the 26th of May, the E.P.A. Had blatantly told BP it was to stop its use of dispersants on the ocean surface, except in “rare cases when there may have to be an exemption.” They were also told to strictly limit the amounts they used underwater.

Seems BP just can’t stop stepping in a heap of trouble.. One wonders when they will finally get things cleared away, and if they will be held accountable for the destruction they have wrought on the environment.

President Obama himself has been quoted as saying that the BP oil spill is the “ worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” and well, so has just about anyone else asked what they thought about it. All sorts of different environmental groups are sounding the klaxons and screaming “catastrophe along the Gulf coast”, while the major news agencies such as; CBS, Fox, and MSNBC are all slathering “Disaster in the Gulf” into their main stories and reports.

Even Tony Hayward, the official fall guy for BP, after some early happy talk, has admitted that the spill was an “environmental catastrophe”. Rush Limbaugh, a rather obnoxious anti-environmentalist, has been on of the few which has argued that the spill, which he calls “the leak” – is not the disaster that everyone is making it out to be. He scoffs the apocalyptic claims of the vast majority of the various green groups.

It appears that Mr. Limbaugh has indeed got a point. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was a horrible thing to happen, especially for the 11 rig workers who died out there, and it certainly isn’t “a leak”; it is the largest spill that the US has witnessed to date.

It is also dealing some heavy blows to the economy and also the psychological well being of the coastal communities that depend on drilling, tourism and of course fishing. While it is impossible to know exactly how much damage has really been done as the event only took place some 3 months ago, it doesn’t seem to be doing any serious environmental damage.

“The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared,” explains Jacqueline Michel, a geochemist who also is a federal contractor who is involved in coordinating the assessments of the shoreline in Louisiana.

It is true that the oil spill has killed birds, but so far, it is less than 1% of the number which were killed in the Exxon Valdez oil spill out in Alaska 21 years ago.

Of course, we have heard all those horror stories about those poor oiled dolphins, however, it is interesting to note that the wildlife response teams have only collected three visibly oiled bodies of mammals. When the spill first occurred, there was a harsh restriction put on fishing and shrimping. After a few tests on the shrimp and fish in the area, it was discovered they were clean, and the restriction lifted.

Yes, Lousiana, it has been warned could experience a speeding up in the deterioration of their marshes, which is happening anyway…

So as you can see, the spill has been touted as being the worst ever.. But is it just being hyped up for public entertainment? I mean would as many papers be sold if it weren’t the biggest disaster in the Gulf Coast? So who benefits from all he doom and gloom? Or is this an effort to try and calm people and divert attention away from what IS a big disaster? We don’t really know at this point.. We may never really know.. But stay tuned, and hopefully someone will sort out this mess.

As the size of the disaster seems to shrink away to nothing, experts are saying that the oil is actually breaking up, and staying beneath the waves.

For a blood curdling two and a half months, oil was gushing out into the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of BP’s damaged oil well. It pumped out somewhere in the vicinity of 200 million gallons of the black gold into the surrounding ecosystems. Along with the federal government, BP has gotten together an army of people to help deal with the mess. There just seems to be one problem – the oil seems to have gone AWOL.

At its most devastating levels last month, the area the oil covered was comparable to that of Kansas, however the spill has rapidly started to disappear, and it now only the size of New Hampshire.

Yesterday, reporters working for ABC News went out to look for themselves, and they didn’t see anything. Even when they flew out to the site of the rig this past Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was surprisingly no oil around.

“That oil is somewhere. It didn’t just disappear,” said Billy Nungesser, the Plaquemines Parish President.

One of the men in search of the black gold is Salvador Cepriano. Cepriano, a professional shrimper, has been attempting to scoop up some of the precious black stuff, but there just doesn’t seem to be any to scoop up.

“I think it is underneath the water. It’s in between the bottom and the top of the water,” Cepriano commented when asked about the strange phenomenon.

The federal government seems to be stumped as well, and has publicly admitted that finding the oil has become an issue.

“It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find,” said Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander.

Skimmers are Scooping UP Less Crude:
Well, the math is right, and numbers rarely lie: a fortnight ago, the skimming boats scooped up around 25,000 barrels of oily water. This past Thursday, they only scooped up about 200 barrels.

Don’t break out the wine yet.. This does not mean that the oil which was pumped out over the past weeks is gone. There are still thousands of small patches of oil which are staying beneath the waves. Be that the case, experts have said that an amazing amount of the black gold has simply disappeared, apparently reabsorbed by the environment.

“[It’s] mother nature doing her job,” explained a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University, Ed Overton.

Scientists: The Oil in The Gulf is Breaking Up:
The lighter of the black gold started to break down when it first squirted from the pipes at high pressure, and then it was inundated with dispersants to help catalyze the process.

The oil that actually did make it to the surface of the ocean was deteriorated by 88 degree water, and then baked by 100 degree sun, chowed down by a bunch of microbes, and then ripped apart by the wind and waves in the area.. Quite a welcoming party huh?

BP has reported that it is quite happy with the early progress it has made to install a brand spanking new containment cap on the faulty well in the Gulf Of Mexico on Sunday, as the oil flow seems to have temporarily let up.

They have stated that they will continue to increase the amount of oil they can collect on a daily basis, and are eagerly awaiting the Helix Producer skimmer to join in the cleanup sometime soon. This comes straight from Kent Wells, one of the senior vice presidents of BP, during their technical briefing on Sunday.

The cap, which was placed in early June, was removed from the leaky well this past Saturday by robotic submarines. BP is hopeful that the entire process of recapping the well will be done in the next four to seven days.

Wells expounded, “We tried to work out as many of the bugs as we can. I think the challenge will come with something unexpected. We are pleased with our process.” Quite a bold statement since from the very beginning they were not living up to their promises.

Near the source of the spill, 46 skimmers managed to collect more than 20,000 barrels of oily water on Saturday. However, BP also has conducted 15 controlled burns, but is hopeful to have two more skimmers at its disposal soon.

The oil is only being cleaned up by the Q4000 at the moment, and it only has a capacity of 378,000 gallons. It is hoped that it will be joined by the Helix Producer by Sunday, which has more than double that capacity.

This means that BP is finally making some headway on this horrific disaster, but they are not out of the woods yet. They still need to fix up the well, so that they may put on “Top Hat 10” the new cap for the well. Once they have “Top Hat 10” mounted into place, they will use special equipment to finally seal off the well.

According to the AP, this special equipment weighs in at around 150,000 pounds, and not only will it seal off the leak for good, but it is supposed to also provide connections for new skimmers on the surface to help clean up the remaining oil spill.

The best hope for finally being done with the whole mess comes from two relief wells. These wells are supposed to be fully operational by the middle of August. These relief wells are being put in so that they can inject cement and mud into the leaking well to stop the flow of oil.

Current estimates are that somewhere between 1.5 million and 2.5 million gallons of oil a day are gushing from the leaking well. The existing cap is only collecting about 1 million gallons a day. The new cap and skimmer are supposedly going to be able to mop up between 2.5 million and 3.4 million gallons a day, which would certainly come as a welcome reprieve from this horrific spill.

Tallahassee, Florida – Scientists are sitting on the edge of their seats, and they have their fingers crossed that the natural oil-eating bacteria being used off the Gulf of Mexico’s Coast have voracious appetites.

One scientist from the Florida State University, Markus Huettel, is studying the natural oil-eating bacteria, trying to determine just how long it will take them to eat up the oil which has penetrated deep into the sediment.

Huettel is a biological oceanographer, and has collected many samples from the beaches in and around the Pensacola area, and is rather astonished by the findings. It appears that oil has penetrated as deep as eight inches into the sand.

The oil is quite an eyesore, and sticks out like a sore thumb on the normally pristine white sandy beaches of the Florida Panhandle.
What is not known at this time, and what Huettel is devoting his time to, is just exactly how long the oil will remain there. He explained that these natural oil-eating bacteria rely upon the proper mixture of oxygen and nutrients to eat up the oil. What is unclear is if the mixture is right deep in the sand.

Under appropriate conditions, Huettel has said that the oil-eating bacteria should be able to complete the task of cleaning up the oil from the BP spill in a relatively short timeframe. “We are talking days, weeks, sometimes a month, you see a substantial degradation of this oil. The situation changes dramatically if you isolate the oil from oxygen and nutrients and that can happen deep in the sediment.”

Halieutichthys intermedus - Fish Biology, MCZ, AMNH

This is an absolutely amazing development.. Even though the Gulf of Mexico is in turmoil, what with the BP oil spill gumming up the works, it appears that life does go on, as scientists revealed on Thursday that a new species of pancake batfish have been discovered there.

The discovery was published in the Journal of Fish Biology, which is a team of researchers led by H.C. Ho of the Academia Sinica, and reports that two flatfish species have been discovered in the Gulf Of Mexico. The Halieutichthys intermedus and the Halieutichthys bispinous were the two species which were uncovered.

What makes this discovery so amazing, is that the latter of the two flatfish discovered is found exclusively in the area of the oil spill. No one really knows why the Halieutichthys bispinous is found only in the area of the spill, but it has been said that it does not necessarily mean there is anything special about that environment. Some researchers have theorized that the fish simply prefer that environment as it is free of natural predators, and that suits the batfish just fine. More research is planned, however the top priority of course is getting the spill cleaned up.

John Sparks, of the American Museum Of Natural History, had this to say on the subject, “If we are still finding new species of fishes in the Gulf, imagine how much diversity — especially microdiversity — is out there that we do not know about.”

Halieutichthys bispinous - Fish Biology, MCZ, AMNH

BP Really Laid it On Thick:
You know, this is really interesting.. It makes one wonder if the people in Washington are being sold a load of bull, and not really caring that they are or aren’t.

On March 24th 2010, BP went in front of congress and made the promise to federal regulators that it had the ability to clean up its mess. One of the promises made was that they were able to clean up and collect “491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of major spill.” That number really is impressive as it rolls off the tongue, however, the reality of what BP is doing is quite different.
As of Monday, there have been just shy of 2 million barrels of oil which have been spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. The skimmers are coming in way under that number of 491,721 barrels a day.. In fact, the skimming operations have only managed to average about 900 barrels a day in the cleanup process. The total collected oil has only been about 67,143 barrels, and BP resorted to massive burning campaigns to get rid of over 238,000 barrels. Most of the oil which has been collected, somewhere in the neighborhood of 632,410 barrels, was collected smack dab on top of the source of the leak.

The conclusion? It seems as if the representatives over at BP took a page out of the politicians handbook, tell them what they want to hear! What they didn’t take into consideration however, is that unlike the 2% tax reduction on imported goods really doesn’t have a profound impact on anything if it doesn’t happen.. By BP not being able to do what they claimed, millions of dollars are being lost daily, not just for oil and cleanup, but also severe damage is being done to the ecosystem as well.

What About Other Oil Companies?

This begs the question… Is this sort of thing normal? BP is taking a lot of heat, however it has been said that all oil companies face the same problems which BP is currently facing. Do other companies make such large claims as BP though? I mean come on… only being able to deliver below 1% of what you have promised to deliver is NOT good. If this were any other company they would have been jailed for false advertising, however the only real repercussions that they seem to be facing is a little bit of bad publicity.

What can we do about it?

You may be sitting there thinking to yourself, “well what am I supposed to do about it?”. Well for starters you can start asking the important questions, and bring more attention to the matter.. For too long have we sat on our duffs and taken in the BP excuses.. Someone needs to be held accountable. So start by looking in your area for a group looking to help with the spill, and let’s get it cleaned up already!

New Orleans – The trial runs of the retrofitted oil tanker, dubbed A Whale, which was developed to aid in the clean up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are not conclusive. This is due to the high seas which were present during the tests, TMT Shipping Offshore stated on Monday.

The trials of A Whale, which were held just to the north of the BP Plc, were supposed to have been wrapped up by Monday, however they have now been extended due to the adverse weather.

Bob Grantham, spokesman for TMT, explained “After an initial 48-hour testing period results remain inconclusive in light of the rough sea state we are encountering. Therefore, working in close coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, we will be undertaking an additional testing period to make operational and technological adjustments aimed at improving skimming effectiveness given the actual conditions we are encountering in the Gulf.”

A Whale wasn’t the only vessel having difficulties. According to Mr. Grantham, a lot of the smaller skimmers were also having difficulty carrying out there task in the adverse conditions caused by Hurricane Alex, which passed through the Gulf of Mexico last week.

A Whale is seen as the potential “Hail Mary” for the efforts in trying to clean up the Gulf of Mexico as it can collect up to 500,000 barrels of oil per day of oily water, which is why the outcome of this trial is so disappointing.

There will be another trial run, and TMT is hoping that this one will go as planned, so that they may secure a contract with BP to skim oil from the gulf. They are prepping to more “super skimmers” so there may just be hope for the Gulf of Mexico yet.